Celebrating the pleasures of a 21st century bookworm

Crime on a Europass: Spain

Today we are visiting Barcelona, courtesy of the wonderful novels penned by Teresa Solana, who considers the crime genre ideal for satirizing society. In the first novel, A Not So Perfect Crime, she lampooned the world of politics. Her second novel, A Short Cut to Paradise, targetted the literary world. (What a brave lady!) I was absolutely delighted to meet her at this year’s World Literature Weekend, where I found out that more of her work is to be translated into English.

The hyperlinks above take you to my reviews.

These are really enjoyable reads, particularly if you have fallen for the charms of Barcelona, as I did last year. Gaudi’s Casa Batillo, which takes pride of place on the front cover of Solana’s first novel, is the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen. And if that’s not a cue for some gratuituous photographs, I don’t know what is! (Ironically, I have to borrow some photos from Flikr. On the day I visited the Casa Batillo, my camera was playing up and I didn’t get all the shots I wanted. Hence my thanks to huve124, jason.leonard.peacock and zota for pictures 1, 3 and 5 below.)

I nearly chose A Not So Perfect Crime for this challenge. I have it in my TBR pile and will be reading it soon. Spain is the vacation playground of Europe just like the southern states (mostly Florida) are for US citizens. I envy Europeans – your choice is far better than our theme park blighted and tourist trap plagued states.

Ahh, perfect timing. I’m looking for a new mystery read. I have been to Barcelona and a friend just visited recently while walking the camino. The lovely pics reminded me of that great city and inspired me to get a copy of “A Not So Perfect Crime”. Luckily, I can actually get a copy here in Huntington Beach, Ca!